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TWO INDIAN DOCUMENTS. 

EDITED, BY 

ALBERT S.'^GATSCHET. 



.W4> Of 2- 



Reprinted from American Antiquarian, September, 1S91. 

TWO INDIAN DOCUMENTS. 
Edited by Albert S, Gatschet. 



I. MIGRATION OF THE WICHITA INDIANS. 

f At a council of the Wichita people, held on the Washita \ 
River, May 19, 1885, Chief Niastor, of the Tawakoni Indians, 
made the following statements : 

When the Wichita Indians lived on the Arkansas River other 
Indians crowded upon them from the north and east, and, after 
a fight, drove them southward. The chief of the Wichitas at 
that time was Todekitsadie. He said that for times immemorial 
his people had lived in the same country, and was driven from 
it only through the onset of the Indians above mentioned. In 
a council it was decided to send a party of explorers to look out 
for a new tract to settle upon. The selected party went south- 
west, and when it struck the Wichita mountains the surrounding 
country pleased them so that they decided to report in favor of 
going there. After their return a council was called, and the party 
of explorers pleaded for emigration to that portion of land. The 
removal was decided upon, and as horses were then unknown, 
the whole people, which was then very numerous, had to walk 
the distance on foot. Arriving from their villages upon the 
Arkansas River at the banks of the North Canadian River, they 
followed it up stream and arrived at the bend of the river, at the 
Red Sand Hills, There they stopped, built lodges and sowed 
their corn. From this location a part of the Wichitas were 
called Tawakoni, for this Wichita word signifies " river bend 
among red or sand hills". Having lived there several years 
they felt a desire to remove, and led by Todekitsadie they started 
for the Wichita mountains, supposing that the soil there was 
better adapted for raising Indian corn. After the Wichitas had 
settled there Todekitsadie died. Niastor also made the addi- 
tional statement, obtained from his mother, that after leaving 
the Red Sand Hills on the Canadian River they did not travel 
directly to the Wichita mountains, but remamed a few years 
north of the (False) Washita River, set up farms near the mouth 
of Sugar Creek (north of Anadarko), and were forced from there 
only through a general inundation, which flooded all the lands 
around the Washita, of which Sugar Creek is a tributary, join- 
ing it from the north near the agency buildings ( They then \ 
fled to the Wichita mountains, and this occurred in the time of '■ 



250 THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN. 

! Niastor's grandfather. Niastor was born there in 1837, near 
I Mount Scott, and his mother was also born in the Wichita 
I mountains, but the earlier emigration of the people from the 
! Arkansas River took place at the time of his great-grandfather. 
The tract where their villages then stood was in the neighbor- 
hood of Wichita City, Sedgwick County, Southern Kansas, and 
flint-heads, with pottery, are now found at their former settle- 
ments. ] To this abstract of the tradition I add the deposition 
made by Niastor in its original terms, since many points are 
made more clear by it. I have received this document through 
the kindness of Mr. H. Kuhn, clerk of the Comanche, Kiowa 
and Wichita Agency, under date of August 23, 1885. 

At a council of the Wichitas, May 19, 1885, Niastor, chief of 
the Tawakonie, said: " My mother told me that her father said 
she was born on the Arkansas River, below where the town of. 
Wichita now is, and where there were holes in the ground in 
which could be found flint heads for arrows and also pottery, 
near where the Osage country now is. My great-grandfather 
told my mother that when the Wichitas lived on the Arkansas 
River the Indians from the north and east crowded and fought 
them, and drove them this way ; that at that time To-de-kits-a-die 
(meaning "Boy chief") was the chief of the Wichitas. He told 
my mother that our people had always lived there, but after the 
Indians fought them our people held a council and concluded to 
move away from there. Some of our people were selected to 
go and look out for a country. The party selected went south- 
west until they saw the mountains now called Wichita mountains, 
and liked the country very much. They returned to the village 
and then our chief men called a council and heard what the 
returned party said about the land they had seen, that it pleased 
them, and that they wanted all of our people to go there. At 
that time there were a great many Wichitas, and our people had 
never seen any horses (there were none in the country), and 
when our people left their villages on the Arkansas River to go 
south, they all had to walk. When they arrived at the North 
Canadian, they traveled up that river till they came to the Red 
Sand Hills in the bend of the river, where they made villages 
and raised corn. It was there that some of our people were first 
called "To-wa-co-nies," because they lived in sand hills in the 
bend of the river. To-wa-co-nie is a Wichita Indian word 
meaning "bend in the river among red hills or sand hill". Our 
people, after living there some years raising corn, got tired, and 
the "Boy chief" (To-de-kits-a-die) told them that they would all 
go to the Wichita mountains, which was a better country for 
raising corn. To-de-kits-a-die died after our people had settled 
in the Wichita mountains." 

"I forgot to tell you that my mother told me when the Wichitas 
moved from the Red Hills on the Canadian River, they remained 



TWO INDIAN DOCUMENTS. 251 

for some years north of the Washita River, and made farms near 
the mouth of Sugar Creek, and while they Hved on the Washita 
there was a big freshet which covered all the bottoms and flooded 
the whole country, after.which our people moved to the Wichita 
mountains. This was during the life-time of my grandfather, 
and my mother was born in the Wichita mountains. I am now 
forty-eight years old, and was born near Mount Scott. My 
mother was very old when she died, thirteen years ago. She 
was much older than Es-quit-cho is now." 

"The Wichitas a long time ago were called Pawnee Picques, 
but our people did not call themselves by that name, and I do 
not know why we were called by that name." 

Ni-AS-TOR, his X viark. 
Witness: Chief of the Towaconie." 

(Signed) E. B. Townsend. 

For a better understanding of the relations among the Pani 
tribes in the Indian Territory, it will be well to consider that the 
name Wichita represents a tribe as well as a clan of that tribe. 
The Wichita tribe had the following seven clans, as ascertained 
by Rev. Owen J. Dorsey, in 1881, from a Tawakoni man called 
Na-ashtuwi, who is probably identical with our Niastor: 

i.Witchita. 2. Towakarehu. 3. We-eko (Weko, Waco, Hueco). 
4. Akwetch. 5. Sidahetch. 6. Kishkat. 7. Kiri-eshkitsu. 

Here the difficulty is to find out whether these names repre- 
sent originally different tribes who became the allies of the 
Wichita, or totemic gentes, into which the main stock of the 
Wichita had gradually diverged. The language of the Towa- 
karehu or Towakoni is about identical with that of the Wichita, 
but that of the Weko shows more disparity. 

The name by which the Wichita originally called themselves 
was Tawayash, Tawaihash ; also spelled Towiache, Towache, 
Toayas, Toweeash. Their present appellation, Wichita, which 
they apply to themselves, is thought to be of Osage origin, and 
to mean "migrating," "removing". 

The other name as mentioned by Niastor is French and should 
read Pawnees piques (not Picques), that is, the tattoed Pawnees. 
Another appellation— Pawnee Picts — smacks of book-learning, 
for it is taken from the Scotch tribe of the Picti or " tattoed," so 
called by a Latin term at the time of the Romans. The third 
name mentioned by Niastor as applied to the Wichita Indians, 
Kitikades or " Painted Eyelids," as he renders it, is the name 
given to them by the Pawnees proper, and is pronounced Kiri- 
kurus or Kidikurus. 

James H. Deer, a Caddo interpreter consulted by me in 1886 
during his presence in Washington, D. C, agreed with the state- 
ment given above, that Wichita was an Osage term signifying 
" movmg about," and as to the name of Tawakoni he heard 



252 THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN. 

from the Wichita that it belonged to their language and signified 
"sand hill bend". The Wacos.another cognate tribe, now count 
only seventy people, and their name means " migrating" in 
Wichita, by which, he said, their travels or raids into Mexico 
are referred to. The Red Sand Hills above mentioned are now 
known as the Red Hills, and lie on the banks of the North Cana- 
dian within the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Reservation, ten miles 
above Darlington, Indian Territory. 

The remnants of all these tribes have been gathered for the 
last twenty years or more in the Indian Territory, north of the 
Washita River, and in 1889 showed the following population: 
Wichita Indians 176, Tawakoni 145, Waco 64, Kichai 63, Caddo 
539; total 987. 



II. REMOVAL OF THE TAENSA INDIANS. 
M. d'aBBADIE a la NLLE ORLEANS LE 10 AVRIL 1 764.* 

"Z^ village des Taensas des environs de la Mobile, qui devoit 
passer dans la Riviere rouge avec les Apalaches et celui des 
Pakanas des Alibamons sont venus me trouver. Et m'ont 
demande d'aller s'etablir sur la Rive droite du fleuve a la Fourche 
des Chetimachas distante de jo lieiies environ de la Nouvelle Or- 
leans. Je n'ai pu leur refuser cette grace et je me suis prete 
d'autant plus volontiers a leurs etablissement dans cette partie 
que J'y vois des avantages sensibles pour la colonic. Ces deux 
villages sont Composes de pres de 200 personnes les Taensas 
sont Chasseurs et Cultivateurs etseront d'une bonne ressource a 
la Nouvelle Orleans. — Les Pakanas Alibamous nous procureront 
bien la meme ressource, mais un avantage plus reel ce serait de 
les opposer aux Tchaktas si ceux ci vo;<laient tenter quelques 
incursions sur nos possessions. lis en sont naturellement ennemis 
et les Tchaktas les craignent." 

Upon inquiries made by me about the documentary evidence 
concerning the ultimate fate of the Taensa people after leaving 
the hospitable shores of Mobile Bay and Alabama River, I received 
from Mr. Pierre Margry, who is editing the colonial documents 
concerning French North America preserved at the "Ministere 
de la Marine," the above piece, with its defective punctuation, 
the contents of which he will probably embody in the next 
volume of his " Decouvertes et Etablissements des Fran9ais," in 
course of publication in Paris since 1880. The translation is as 
follows: 



♦From a package marked "Correspondance generale, Louisiane," Volume XIV 
Preserved in the archives of the Ministry of the Marine, Paris. 



TWO INDIAN DOCUMENTS. 253 

"MR. d'aBBADIE AT NEW ORLEANS) APRIL 10, 1 764. 

"The village of the Taensas in the vicinity of Mobile, the in- 
mates of which had to pass over to the Red River with the 
Apalaches and the Pakanas-Alibamons, have called upon me to 
ask permission for settling upon the right-hand bank of the 
(Mississippi) river at the Shetimasha fork, which is distant from 
New Orleans about thirty leagues, I could not refuse to accede 
to their demand, and have countenanced their project to settle 
at that spot, so much more willingly as I consider it of advantage 
to the colony. The two villages comprehend nearly 200 per- 
sons. The Taensas are hunters and tillers of the soil, and will be 
of great support to the City of New Orleans; whereas the 
Pakanas-Alibamons will furnish the same help to us, though a 
more real advantage to us would be to oppose them to the 
Chactas, should they attempt to make forays on our possessions. 
They are their natural enemies, and the Chactaws are afraid of 
them." 

In the March number, 1885, of The American Antiquarian 
Dr. D. G. Brinton has revoked in doubt the authenticity of the 
Taensa " Grammar" and " Popular Songs," published three years 
before by Messrs. Maisonneuve & Co., Paris. To arrive at this 
end he asserts that the Taensa people, after leaving their old 
home between Vicksburg and Natchez, on the west side of the 
Mississippi River, they remained for ten or twelve years upon a 
temporary cession of land,* and a while after this disappeared 
entirely, so that in 1740, or thereabouts, certainly not one Taensa 
remained in existence. All this is based on an entire misconcep- 
tion of the historic facts. The Northern Taensas, after having fled 
down the Mississippi River from the fury of the Chicasa Indians, 
were by ihe French authorities finally settled on the western 
site of Mobile Bay, below P'ort St. Louis, and thirty miles above 
Fort Conde (now the site of Mobile City, Alabama). This same 
people was now called the Southern Taensa ; it continued to 
exist long after 1740, for by the present document of iy6^ it is 
proved [that its population, joined to that of the Pakanas, was 
two hundred souls. In Louisiana, they reappear in 1805 upon 
the Red River, and in Rev. Schermcrhorn's Report of 1812 in 
the same tracts. Since the arguments of Dr. Brinton against the 
authenticity of the Taensa language^ and especially against the 
songs of 1827 are largely based upon the alleged early disap- 
pearance of the whole tribe, we may gather from this how shaky 
the whole of his "discovery" really is, although he is still harp- 
ing on it, whenever any opportunity presents itself 

After peace had been concluded between France and Great 
Britain and the French lands had been ceded to the English, 

♦They lived from 1706 to 1714 upon the Demeuve farm, on the Mississippi River, 
where the French commander had placed them. 



254 THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN. 

the tribes dwelling south of the Ohio River held a meeting at 
Mobile, in the spring of 1764, to decide upon the new course to 
be pursued against the now all-absorbing power. The following 
tribes resolved to expatriate themselves rather than to abandon 
their old friends, the French colonists, and followed them to the 
west of the Mississippi River: the six lower towns oi the Chacta, 
the Taensas, Biloxis, Pascagoulas and a portion of the Alibamus. 

Very little is known in history about the Pakanas, who figure 
here as a part of the Alibamus. Their name is Chacta, and they 
are perhaps identical with the Nanipakna, once at the mouth of 
the Alabama River. Their name signifies the "upper ones," oe 
" those above". During the nineteenth century Pakanas arr 
mentioned in Louisiana, west of Middle Sabine River. 

The spot on the Mississippi River where the two tribes wished 
to settle, is the point near Donaldsonville, where the great river 
sends a portion of its waters to the gulf by the Bayou Lafourche. 
It is a place of importance in Indian and colonial history, and 
the eastern part of the Shetimasha people formerly held this 
bayou in its entire length. 



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